Contra Epstein, Good Explanations Predict

Nicholas S. Thompson () and Patrick Derr ()
Additional contact information
Nicholas S. Thompson: http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 2009, vol. 12, issue 1, 9

Abstract: Epstein has argued that an explanation's capacity to make predictions should play a minor role in its evaluation . This view contradicts centuries of scientific practice and, at least, decades of philosophy of science. We argue that the view is not only unfounded but seems to arise from a mistaken fear that ABM models are in need of defense against the criticism that they don't necessarily forecast events in the natural or social world.

Keywords: ABM; Agent Based Model; Modeling; Prediction; Explanation; Philosophy of Science (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-01-31
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.jasss.org/12/1/9/9.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jas:jasssj:2008-75-2

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation from Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Francesco Renzini ().